Quote:As the decline of American society persists, it is not coincidence that the atheist movement in the United States is simultaneously growing.

And the cause of school shootings is because Christians are no longer allowed to force our children to stand and pray to their god every morning in public school and 9/11 is a result of allowing gays to marry..yadda..yadda..yadda...

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. – Thomas Paine

In the reddest and most Christian states, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, and divorce rates are much higher than in less religious areas of the country. Wonder how they explain that inverse correlation?

When he says that it is wrong to think that Christians alone think that "they are right, and everyone else is wrong", why is it that they try to "save souls"? If you believe that you're not the only one who "has it right" then why bother to convince the opposition?

And it's not the "laws of science" proving that there is no god, it's just that there is no evidence. The laws of science have evidence to back them up. When you spout off that there must be a god, then the burden of proof falls on you, just as it does with the laws of science. In the scientific community, you can't just start saying what you think to be true without a scientific method (hypotheses, repeated experiments, peer review, et cetera).

And I read all of the comments, too. A commenter by the name of Offensive_Bias finished up all his arguments for Christianity by chalking it up to "Obama and Big Government" pushing their beliefs on everyone. Okaaay.

They both have majority atheist populations and they have a higher standard of living than the US, better health care, lower infant mortality, better education, lower crime rates, and their poor have a greater chance of upward mobility than in the US.

The people closely associated with the namesake of female canines are suffering from a nondescript form of lunacy.
"Anti-environmentalism is like standing in front of a forest and going 'quick kill them they're coming right for us!'" - Jake Farr-Wharton, The Imaginary Friend Show.

People ask how this guy can overlook this or that or the other thing? How else? It's the same old song and dance. Reach your conclusion a-priori (Atheists bad!) and find evidence to support it. If you like a claim, it's evidence. This isn't a religion thing or a conservative thing, it's a human psychology thing.

As for why America is "declining"? Let's see...

In terms of being a superpower, we aren't. We've been unchallenged since the second world largely collapsed. Our biggest opponent is China. But China is a trade partner, an uneasy friend, and unable to project power the way the US does. Not in the same league as a superpower. Also, you've got assymetric combatants such as Al-Qaeda, which the US has NEVER known how to deal with. Nothing new there. But they're nowhere near superpower status. If the US operates less brashly on the world stage, I'd blame the anti-war mentality that got real, popular traction in the 60s, and was ultimately founded in Christianity. And I think it's a good thing.

In terms of absolute economic might, and economic superiority? Well, the world recession started with a housing bubble that was in turn made possible by deregulation of the banking system, and lack of enforcement of regulations that still existed. (Arguably, it was also caused by wealth disparity. Poor and middle class people spend most of their money in the real economy on frivolous things like food, rent, medicine, gas, tech, and immediate luxuries, rather than financial boondoggles like packaged mortgages.) But its impact is hardly an American phenomenon. It hit Europe far harder. China managed it fairly well in the short term, but is now dealing with the consequences of that management. If anything, America's emerging from it stronger than the other major economic powers. In absolute GDP terms, we've emerged from the recession.

But in a longer term sense, sure, America's economic power relative to the world stage has been declining ever since the late 40s. Baby boomers think back to the halcyon wealth of the 50s and moan about how things are worse. Well, yes. That's because in the late 40s, every other industrial power on the planet had had their industry wracked, wrecked, and ruined by WWII, and half of them (such as Germany) were now part of the tug-of-war between the first world and the second. Meanwhile, ours was largely untouched. The US had a brief monopoly on industrial power, and built up as others rebuilt. This advantage wasn't about something we did right (except to keep The Enemy from our shores), it's about something that happened to everyone else. Also, strong unions and government regulation assured that all that wealth didn't just go into the the pockets of CEOs; it was used to fund 40 hour workweek, high salaries and wages, and extensive social programs. This largess was also short-term. The industrial world rebuilt, the developing world developed, and in a couple of decades we were no longer the only big dog around. The wealth evaporated, and with it so did high salaries, extensive social programs, and the 40 hour workweek, and in an effort to maintain that standard of living that they could no longer afford, Americans turned to debt. (CEOs are doing just fine, though.) The 50s were an erratic, outlying economic peak, a freak statistic, and yet it's what so many expectations are calibrated against.

Where else is the US declining? Science and innovation? Nope... and if we were, I'd blame the underfunding of the school system and the creationists undermining its science curriculum. Public programs? Yup, but that's more reversible political choices than any fundamental decline. In morality? Well, that depends on what you define as morality, but in the past half-century we've (largely) equalized the legal and social status of women and non-whites, are making the same effort with the QUILTBAG community, have shifted our model of warfare to one that's much less terrible for the civilians where we're fighting, and cut alcohol and tobacco use down significantly, if you care about that sort of thing. Sure, there have been limited areas of decline, but overall I'd call it a net gain morally. Um... what else... what else...

Oh, RIGHT! We're declining BECAUSE WE'RE BECOMING MORE ATHEISTIC! I forgot this obvious trick. If we abandon God, we're obviously declining into depravity! And of COURSE atheism is responsible for this! This isn't about cause and effect, this is equivocation! And really? It's the only way that part of the article makes any sense. (I'm probably being overgenerous in expecting it to make sense, but.) The notion of the decline is not supported, at all. It's simply asserted, and linked to atheism by... what? Proximity? The presumption that God's blessing the faithful with wealth and punishing the unfaithful with decline, but can't seem to calibrate His omnipotence finely enough to target individuals rather than nations?

And in the end, it's not even the point of the article. It's just one cheap, fallacious shot at atheism, in a pile of other fallacies aimed at atheism (I counted straw man, appeal to populism, ad-hominem, and begging the question, and could argue a few more), and that's really the point of the whole thing. It's not about some American decline, that's just one of a list of things that the author's grabbing onto as another nerf bat to pummel atheists with.

So, yeah. More words than it deserves. Examined, critiqued, torn to bits on the proving grounds, canned, shoved, buried. I'm done with it.

I am an antipistevist. That's like an antipastovist, only with epistemic responsibility instead of bruschetta.

They both have majority atheist populations and they have a higher standard of living than the US, better health care, lower infant mortality, better education, lower crime rates, and their poor have a greater chance of upward mobility than in the US.

In my opinion the rise of atheist is the result of what is happening in the world. I can't speak for anyone else here, but unless it is a wedding, funeral, or my wife is able to get me to, I don't go to church. Churches have been and still are a big part of our economy. As less and less people go to church, the churches have less money to put back into the economy. I realise that money that is not spent on religious donations is more than likely put into other things, but I try to put what I don't spend into the bank. So, logically some atheists out there might put their extra money into cigarettes and alcohol. I am fairly certain that given the nature of cigarette companies, that they don't exactly put their money into things that grow the economy. They most likely hold onto money and only put it into buying politicians, which means they don't help the poor or pay contractors enough money, basically rich tightwads. This leads to outside contractors and even their own employees not having money to put into the economy. It is kind of like growing pains. It will only be solved when athsists are the majority, such as in the other countries that are by majority atheist.